The thing I am most proud of this past year, is quitting.
I had applied to the coaching course because it was “perfect” for me. A natural next step. I felt it. Everyone around me felt it. It made so much “sense.” I had requests from so many women wanting to meet with me, work with me: obviously I needed to make this official. Whatever it takes.
I worked through some internal resistance around coaching before applying. I was proud of that work, and moved forward wholeheartedly, excitedly. And of course I chose one of the more accredited, legitimate and long term programs (ya know, just to really go hard and prove something to myself and others). The course stood out to me for intentionally incorporating therapeutic modalities. So me. So perfect.
Surely I had “done nothing” long enough. My business didn’t require so much of me. I had the time. A harsh voice plucked me out of the freedom and expansiveness of my healing and rest. I applied.
Every week, for months: courses and calls and triads and sessions. I loved taking notes, color coded with my fun little pens. Mmm, to be a student again.
But over time I noticed a dulling. At first, I couldn’t place it. I attribute it to this and that. But then it became clear: every time I entered the coursework realm of my week, I felt a switch turning off. I became robotic, lifeless. And sad. I was dragging my feet, sighing constantly, and coming into my therapy sessions — despite everything being so “perfect” — feeling unusually down.
I was starting to choke on all the air I had worked so hard to breathe, and noticed the familiar signs of self betrayal: head down, one foot in front of the other.
The course wasn’t resonating, but it did offer the glitter of achievement. Filling time. Focus. Something that might bring me value and purpose. And make everything worthwhile. Including myself.
One day I realized: this course has become my new diet.
Just do it. Plow through. It’ll feel good. Even when it doesn’t, keep going. You’ll be happy.
Finish what you started, Mimi.
It will be worth it, Mimi.
I recognized these voices. I didn’t feel good, but I was trekking on. I saw it. I was hurting myself simply to finish what I started. My life, my body, my soul was letting me know.
Months in, I’m in therapy and my therapist is describing low-grade depression. I am shocked to find myself in her description, in every way. She reflects how I keep mentioning the course in passing. She knows my patterns. She treads slowly. But we’re gonna go there.
“Take a breathe. What’s here?”
A lot. A lot was there.
I hadn’t wanted to admit it or “go there” but I was absolutely hating the course, hated that I had chosen it, and hated that I hated it.
I had subconsciously been hoping it would change. It wasn’t.
I had to stop.
I knew I would be confusing people. My friends who were rooting me on. My teachers who had taught a very enthusiastic and promising student. My parents, who had helped pay for this training. “Who just changes their mind like that?” “How did this at once feel so right and then come to feel so wrong?” “What happened here?” “Are you sure?”
And I was sure. And it only needed to make sense to me. (Spoiler alert: everyone who knows me deeply totally got it. Moshe even later tells me “Duuuuuh, I was watching you and supporting you…but this wasn’t you.”) I knew what I needed to do. And I then become an entirely different kind of student, to a crash-course life lesson worth every penny of the investment I had made.
After informing the program I was leaving, there was nothing to sit with. I simply came to life. God returned to me everything that I had paused while committed to the program. An avalanche of energy, hope, insight and clarity came rushing in.
So much had been held at bay. Suddenly I was moving through big decisions and emotions and responding to life with more vigor. My spirit was saying to me, “When you listen to me I will tell you more.” To me, this is God. Hashem had been trying to show me. Sometimes we look for signs. They’re really within us.
That week I sat in a car with Mushky crying my eyes out about something I had been carrying for months, but had been too busy being obedient, to even notice. It’s like this course had been a numbing agent applied to my entire being. And I was now starting to feel again. Breathe again. Laugh again.
I wouldn’t be getting my money back. But I got myself back.
I have a newfound compassion for this part of me that arrived here (see, I use that wording instead of “got myself into this situation”). Even after years of hard work unwinding from hustle and diet culture and choosing rest and inwardness and listening at tremendous cost (and rewards), we will find ourselves in familiar cycles. But now I had the ability to see it. And make a choice. And I feel stronger and more self aware for having flexed these muscle and learned these lessons, which were deeply integrated thanks to time and space and, of course, therapy.
Sometimes we choose things that are distractions or covers, unknowingly, because we think they will give us a protection we NEVER had — or an identity we’ve ALWAYS had. When we become aware of this facade, with gentleness, we can make more aligned decisions that take us where we need to go. Perhaps at a different time I would choose this again and it wouldn’t be so self negating, but this is what was here for me now. I needed to listen. And the outcome was so, so rich. I told myself, it is safe to change my mind. It is safe to listen to myself. It is safe to disappoint and even confuse people. You’re allowed to feel better. There is something else you need, and you are needed somewhere else.
Loosen the grip. Let it go. Let it go. Let it go.
I gained everything by leaving. Saying “no” to the program meant saying “yes” to another course I had previously signed up for: my homecoming. I would quit a thousand times…to find myself again.
Thank you for sharing this. It is SO important to recognise when something is no longer serving us. Some people are natural coaches. All those people who always asked to talk to you, never asked for your credentials. They wanted YOU- your advice, your wisdom, your attention...So happy that you are in a much freer, healthier place. Thank you for allowing us to share this part of your life with you